


caught on film, captured forever

by thehobbem



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Fluff, M/M, Photographer!Victor, Romance, Supermodel!Yuuri, also: victor comes this close to MPDGing yuuri, but not on my watch, victor doesn't know what to do with his life until he meets yuuri - as usual, what can I say I'm a simple woman with simple tastes, yuuri is too gorgeous to bear - as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-16 13:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21036881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehobbem/pseuds/thehobbem
Summary: First, Victor looks.He's a photographer after all, look is what he does. Besides, beautiful things are meant to be looked at, and what could be more beautiful than Yuuri Katsuki?But when Victor listens, touches, and opens his eyes not to look but tosee, he realizes that just looking at Yuuri is missing the point.





	caught on film, captured forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regardinglove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regardinglove/gifts).

_“It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.”_

_— Paul Caponigro_

* * *

**10 Iconic Fashion Photographers You Should Know**

1.Victor Nikiforov 

Rising to fame as a model after starring in Versace’s AW07 campaign, Victor Nikiforov's attention was soon diverted towards what happens behind the camera, and he quickly became one of the industry's go-to photographers. He's worked with the greatest names in the game — Prada, Chanel, Baranovskaya, Saint-Laurent, among others — and has also photographed royals from all around the world.

His photos are an endless chain of surprises, being impossible to ignore or forget.

_“You have to do the opposite of what people expect. How else will you surprise them?”_

**KEEP READING**

* * *

  
Victor hangs up with a sigh. Talking to Lilia is always… well, the iceberg that sank the Titanic has nothing on her is one way to put it.

Even so, shooting the Baranovskaya Autumn Winter campaign was an automatic ‘yes’. Good money and a good collection. Much more satisfying than shooting, say, the Leroy campaign — trying to come up with ways to flatter their hideous collection was nothing short of an uphill battle. Expecting anything tasteful out of Leroy is as futile as looking for fashion in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, and shame on him for hoping otherwise.

He throws himself on the couch, and Makkachin immediately adds her 60 pounds of fur on top of him as if it were nothing; it’s really about time they have a conversation about her gargantuan size. Scratching her ears, Victor stares at the ceiling and vaguely runs over what he knows of the Baranovskaya AW19 collection.

"Eros". The crowning jewel of this year's New York Fashion Week, with provocative designs and a subtle middle finger to gender roles. Not _too _new or provocative, though, nothing he hasn’t seen before. The last time he saw anything new on a runway was… Chanel, Fall 2014, if memory serves. And even then, it was more due to the “Rihanna pushing a shopping cart on the runway” bit than the clothes themselves.

Mostly, fashion amounts to the same old factors in a never-changing equation: the same designers, the same models in outfits made from recycled ideas and flashes of genius that have long stopped burning bright. The same lifeless faces and stale concepts.

That includes him. When was the last time he cared about what he was looking at on the other side of the camera?

* * *

**  
Yuuri Katsuki Is The New Face of Baranovskaya**

by Hisashi Morooka

Lilia Baranovskaya, founder and creative director of the luxury brand Baranovskaya, has confirmed on the official Instagram account that Yuuri Katsuki will be their new face. The supermodel will star in the autumn/winter 2019 campaign to be unveiled in July.

“I am honored to be the new face of Baranovskaya,” Katsuki said in a statement. “I’ve always admired the house for its celebration of people as they are, instead of what they should look like.”

**KEEP READING**

* * *

  
The first day of shooting is always its own brand of organized chaos: meeting people for the first time, learning how they work, seeing what makes them tick in the right direction. Chaos, but routine at this point.

He and Lilia exchange cheek kisses and a few pleasantries about the last time they saw each other, before she adds with her fashionable coldness:

“Victor, this is Yuuri Katsuki.”

And just like that, he’s the one led towards the right direction, like a compass pointed north. Because no one _told him._

He’s seen Katsuki hundreds of times before, of course, on runways, magazine covers, ads. Those are one thing. No one told him Yuuri Katsuki in real life is something else entirely.

Victor follows protocol out of pure muscle memory: he shakes hands, says "nice to meet you", but all his brain registers is a sharp jawline on a soft face, a turned-up nose, the curves of a collarbone peeking from under a slightly open shirt, and flyaways hinting at slightly untamable hair. Eyes of bronze and amber looking at him with nothing of the famous icy Katsuki glare.

"Nice meeting you, too," Yuuri says, and would you look at the rosy color rising his neck and tinting his cheeks? What photographer wouldn't give an arm to be able to capture that exact same effect of sunset lights on one of the seven wonders of the modern world?

When the pink turns into a darker hue of red, Victor realizes he’s still holding Yuuri’s hand and staring into his eyes. Behind him, Chris clears his throat. "Vic?"

Letting go at once, Victor opens his best business smile. "Alright, everybody let's get to work!" he says, hoping he wasn't too obvious.

Going by Christophe's raised eyebrow, it's fair to say he was pretty obvious.

* * *

  
Yuuri goes through hair and makeup with Georgi and styling with Mila, while Victor and Chris give the scenario its final touches.

When Yuuri steps out of the dressing room, Victor raises his eyes from his equipment and immediately regrets it. He… won't be able to get much done, will he? Not if he can’t look away from Yuuri. But how can he? Between the dress pants hugging Yuuri's thighs and ass without a fault, the black suit jacket with its right side draped and cascading like a skirt with red lining (a pop of color in B&W pictures, Victor's photographic instincts supply from a distance), and the hair once again perfectly gelled back, Yuuri looks every bit the temptress Victor had in mind for the shoot — only much more dangerous than anticipated.

“_Honey,” _Chris whispers, echoing his thoughts, “the community thanks you for your service.” His eyes go to the exposed chest under the jacket, and Victor makes a mental note to give Mila a raise; that girl's a genius stylist.

As Yuuri walks into the set, Victor appeals to the best in himself not to eye the sway of Yuuri's hips as he moves (he fails). Eyes already casting the intimidating glare that steadily sells Baranovskaya No.6 all around the world, Yuuri asks, “Where do you want me, Victor?”

Chris turns to him as well, eyes as large as they are impossibly innocent. "Yes, Vic, where do you want him?"

An instinctive _“Shut up, Chris,”_ and an inconvenient _“On my lap” _are the first two answers that cross Victor's head. He swats both away with a smile and an, “On the table.”

Once Yuuri is settled, Victor’s professional instincts kick in, and the photos begin. “Now Yuuri, can you sit at the edge of the table… more — yeah, like that… throw your head back… great. On your elbows… look straight at the camera… perfect!”

Not that Victor needs to give him a lot of directions: when he so much as begins, Yuuri flows into the next pose, and the next, each one the sheer image of temptation. He throws his head back, eyes only barely dignifying the camera with a look, and even the way he breathes serves seduction on a silver platter; it’s like second nature to him.

_Looking the way he does, it probably is,_ he thinks.

When Yuuri comes out in the next outfit — a white unbuttoned shirt, black boxers, red stilettos and nothing else — Victor swallows a whimper. Nothing has ever been this good to look at. His bare, toned thighs are a test of fortitude, and his _ankles. _Thick, shapely ankles that open endless daydream scenarios involving Victor’s low-key predilections and those very same stilettos.

They wrap up the shoot a couple of hours later, with the sun already on its way down and the winter sky painted in golden and pink tinges. Victor’s taken so many pictures of similar skies before; now that he knows those colors are partially the result of pollution, it's lost much of its poetry.

As his team undoes the scenario, Yuuri comes out of the dressing room in his own clothes, talking and laughing with Mila — and once again, Victor can’t help but stare. The coldest season wraps itself around New York like a blanket right now, but Yuuri's smile does the exact opposite in here: it brightens up the place like the morning sun.

He should… talk to him. Say something. Invite him to something.

Just as Victor decides to go for it, he catches Yuuri looking at him. As soon as their eyes lock, however, instead of the smile he's extended to everyone else, Yuuri immediately looks away. More than that: he turns his back on Victor while a hint of red touches his cheeks.

After that, with a quick confirmation of the next shoot and a cursory goodbye, Yuuri Katsuki leaves in a hurry, leaving Victor with nothing but a Katsuki Frosty Stare™ and the memory of cherry red on his cheeks.

That, and the desire to see more of it.

* * *

  
“Isabella, dear, how are you?”

“Nathalie, hi!”

“Josef, where have you _been?”_

Victor has a flute of Dom Perignon in one hand, a langoustine canape on the other, and a ready-to-wear smile plastered on his face. Another party in a long line of predictable parties, each indistinguishable from the other.

Lilia really does know how to throw a proper bash. Not too decadent, not too sober, and excellent food (that mint and lemon risotto was to _die_ for). Still, the relativity of time is hardly related to the quality of risottos, and the truth is that Victor has only been here for little more than an hour, but it feels like an entire night.

Armed with his business smile, Victor walks past circles of hollow laughter, past all the carefully handpicked abstract art, and a divan in old gold velvet he feels he would be entirely justified in chiding Lilia for; he crosses the gallery and goes into the library, shutting the door behind him.

Taking a couple of long sips of his champagne, he accepts with the right amount of indifference that he’ll be holed up in here with a book for the next hour, give or take. At which point he’ll resurface, pay the price of social interaction, and leave after appropriate 20 minutes. The usual.

He walks towards the closest bookshelf. He devoted himself to Steinbeck’s _The Grapes of Wrath _at the last party, if memory serves him right, so maybe something more upbeat this time? Not that Lilia has many of those. He grabs a leather-bound copy of Kafka’s _The Trial_; she probably thinks this qualifies as upbeat.

As if in response to that, he hears laughter.

Victor raises his eyes from the book: the French windows of the library lead out onto a terrace — and on the terrace, is Yuuri Katsuki. Hair falling in sweaty strands over his face, shirt untucked, sleeves rolled up, jacket discarded on the floor and tie nowhere to be seen.

And he’s dancing.

Waltzing, actually, of all things. It would not survive the inspection of the World Dance Council, perhaps, but it’s a waltz nonetheless. Locked in someone else’s arms — another vaguely familiar face Victor hasn’t cared to register — Yuuri spins with proficiency and grace, his smile shedding light on the long shadows plaguing the dimly lit terrace. There’s no music, the undefined jazz playing in the living room doesn’t reach this far, but still Yuuri dances, making music with his own body at every move and every turn.

Victor doesn’t know for how long he watches them out there, or when he silently slid open the doors. What he does know is that he could easily stay there all night, letting the siren spell lure him in; that he wouldn’t mind if someone untied him from the mast and let him jump straight into the siren’s arms.

When Yuuri and his partner break apart in breathless laughter, taking a second to rest against the balustrade, their eyes meet before Victor can move away. Yuuri does a double-take and his eyes fly wide.

“Yuuri, _look!_ It’s Victor Nikiforov! Victor Nikiforov, hi!!!” his partner half-yells, waving frantically at him. To Victor’s surprise, the partner is Phichit Chulanont (“the biggest Southeast Asian supermodel of the last decade,'' as Vogue Italia has recently called him). They’ve never worked together, but Phichit greets him with the happiness of another victim of too much Dom Perignon.

His face advertising an even deeper shade of red than before, Yuuri laughs like one who has run out of options and joins in: “It _is _Victor Nikiforov! Come here, Victor Nikiforov!”

Unable to resist, Victor unties himself from the mast and goes out onto the terrace, being received by the brightest smile he’s ever seen. “Victorrrrr,” Yuuri slurs, opening his arms, “welcome to the real party!”

“Why, thank you,” Victor says, huffing a laugh. He gives the scenery a once over — the view of Manhattan from 740 Park Avenue, the fresh, crisp night air around them, and their joyous, disheveled state — before adding, “This is much better than what’s going on in there.”

Phichit grabs him by the arm. “It _is, _right? You are correct, Victor Nikiforov,” he says, slapping him lightly on the chest. Yuuri nods fervently in agreement.

“You’re not going back there, right?” Yuuri says, eyes large, a bit glassy, and focused on him. “You have to stay!”

The answer would be an enthusiastic “yes”, but before Victor can give it, there’s a tug at his tie and he finds Yuuri’s face a couple of inches away from his.

“Dance with me, Victor Nikiforov.”

* * *

  
Among vast swathes of dark blue, strips of gold and light pink swim among clouds of fiery red. Sitting on the floor with their legs sticking out in between the balusters, Victor and Yuuri watch the sun rise again over Manhattan. At some point of the night Yuuri lost his pants, staying in his shirt and boxers like a real-life version of the Baranovskaya shoot. Behind them, Phichit snores on an expensive-looking chaise longue. Victor doubts Lilia even knows they’re still in her apartment.

He also doubts he’s ever danced this much or laughed this much since… forever. He’s never been this tired for so many right reasons (Yuuri, on the other hand, looks like he could go on dancing for at least another hour). Again, why did no one _tell him?_ He should’ve been warned of the dangers and wonders Yuuri Katsuki poses, should’ve been told Yuuri looks like untouchable ice, but exists like fire. That when he smiles at you, you remember things you never knew, and that when he speaks, it’s in quiet tones of honey that no ad could ever convey.

“I have a confession,” Yuuri says, and Victor’s heart skips a beat. Their night was built on two things only: dances and confessions. Their undying love for poodles, the unshakable conviction that Michael Kors is tacky, the certainty that Pasquale Jones’ pizza is fine but Koronet’s jumbo slices are better, that Lilia is far less intimidating than most people think her. Maybe this one will be the kind of confession that can only come after a string of smaller ones, the kind Victor knows he’ll answer with “me too”.

Voice barely above a whisper, Yuuri confesses: “You’re my favorite photographer.”

…Oh. Well. Right.

“Wow. Um, thanks!”

“And I… was super nervous to talk to you at the shoot yesterday,” Yuuri adds, looking out into the Manhattan landscape. “I thought that… that if I talked too much, you were gonna think I’m shallow, or stupid, or— I don’t know.”

Ohhhh.

Well, that’s a relief: what seemed an alcohol-fueled miracle, bound to turn to ash with morning, can actually last beyond sunrise and some Advil. Victor can work with that.

He gives Yuuri a shoulder nudge. “I would never think that.”

With a self-deprecating laugh, Yuuri continues, “I even framed one of your photos.”

“Really?! Which one?” 

“It’s, uh, one that you took of me? On the last Paris Fashion Week. I’m wearing Lilia’s new indigo suit with—”

“With some shimmer, yeah, I remember,” Victor says. “You looked amazing in it.” He can’t imagine there’s anything Yuuri wouldn’t look gorgeous in, but that suit was particularly inspired.

“Yeah, that one. There’s this one photo, you were right in front of me and you took it, and it just… it’s the first time I actually looked beautiful in anything.”

Victor almost laughs — surely that’s a joke, when _doesn’t _Yuuri look beautiful? — but refrains when he glances at Yuuri’s face: he actually… means that.

“What do you mean, ‘the first time you looked beautiful’?” Victor asks, staring at Yuuri. Somehow, this feels like the first time he’s seeing him. It probably is, if he’s being honest.

Yuuri’s brows knits in genuine confusion. “Well, I… I’m not really? Anyone can look pretty with the right clothes and hair and makeup,” he says, opening up his hands helplessly. “There are tons of other guys like me out there, I’m a dime a dozen. Everything I do, everything I am, is gonna fade tomorrow. Your photos, though… they’re forever. The beauty you create is forever.”

Victor doesn’t have an answer, not when all of it is said so… matter-of-factly. Like it’s some undeniable truth Yuuri’s made his peace with so long ago it doesn’t even bother him anymore. Like he isn’t one of the highest-paid models in the world, or the first male model to ever make the September cover of Vogue.

Like his every move and every word isn’t worth more than the entire art world put together.

After a stretch of silence, Victor murmurs. “I see. You’re still drunk, and don’t know what you’re saying.”

That gets a loud snort from Yuuri, which in its turn gets some disgruntled mumbling from Phichit. He turns his back on them and resumes sleeping.

“I mean it,” Victor says with a small smile. “This ‘dime a dozen’ thing, that’s the alcohol talking. Or me ‘creating beauty’,” he adds with air quotes, “only a supremely drunk person would believe that.”

“A drunk person and the entire fashion industry,” Yuuri says with an eye roll, “but go off, I guess.”

“Well, the industry is wrong.” If Yuuri can make such a confession, the least Victor can do is pay him in kind. “The industry doesn’t know, for example, that I haven’t taken one single photo I like in years.”

Yuuri cocks his head with just the slightest look of curiosity. That spurs Victor on.

“Nothing… feels important enough. Nothing feels like ‘yes, this _should_ be immortalized’. I don’t even…” he bites his lip for a second, but everything else has already been said, he might as well finish it now. “I don’t even remember why I do it.”

This is met with soft silence, and they both watch the sun slowly bathe the top of the buildings. The sky has moved on to light blue and pale gold, and here on the 19th floor the winter winds are especially biting. Today’s supposed to be the first day of snow and it feels like it.

“Well,” Yuuri finally says, “it might be a stupid question, but when was the last time you photographed anything for _you?_ Outside of work, something you liked?”

The answer to that is surprisingly easy today.

“Don’t remember,” Victor says, turning to look at Yuuri as the first hints of the sun caress his face and light up his eyes in amber. Maybe the sky lights are still worth some attention, after all. “But I think I found something.”

* * *

**  
Northeastern US under state of emergency as blizzard moves in**

Snowfall accumulation of 18-30 inches was recorded for New England, including the Boston area. Seven inches were recorded in New Jersey, and six inches in New York.

Northeastern states declared a state of emergency as the blizzard approached. New York closed roads in the afternoon, and governors throughout the region encouraged residents to prepare to spend the weekend indoors.

**KEEP READING**

* * *

**  
1:35 pm [Yuuri]** and vicchan really wanted to go outside today but now

**1:35pm [Me] **Yeah, Makka too. She hates being cooped up inside all day

**1:36pm [Me] **A shame about the shoot, though

**1:36pm [Me] **I wanted to see you

Victor looks at the phone, watching the sign of “typing” come and go in the breath of a second, and then reappear. And vanish again.

He should stop staring. He should lock the phone and stop waiting for an answer to materializ— oh good, he’s typing.

**1:37pm [Yuuri] **you can see vicchan instead

**1:37pm [Yuuri] **vicchancentralpark17.jpg

**1:38pm [Me] **OMG YUURI

**1:38pm [Me] **HE IS SO CUTE

**1:38pm [Me] **Give me more!!! ♥♥♥

**1:39pm [Yuuri] **vicchancentralpark18.jpg

**1:39pm [Yuuri] **vicchanbirthday9.jpg

**1:39pm [Me] **╰(*´♡`*)╯

**1:40pm [Me] **Wait

**1:40pm [Me] **You’re wearing glasses in this

**1:41pm [Yuuri] **yeah

**1:41pm [Yuuri] **i have to, can’t see shit 5 feet away

** 1:41pm [Me] **Σ(°ロ°)

**1:42pm [Me] **I never saw you with glasses!

**1:42pm [Yuuri] **i look better without them

**1:42pm [Yuuri] **phichit says it gives me a serious case of resting bitch face, tho

Myopia. The famed Katsuki Frosty Stare™ is nothing more than myopia. With a smile, Victor shakes his head and, after a moment of hesitation, answers.

**1:44pm [Me] **You look just as beautiful with glasses ♡

* * *

  
After three days of life standing still in the city, the snow relented at last and the shoot was rescheduled for a Friday.

Victor thought of little else besides Yuuri — Yuuri’s eyes and laughter, Yuuri’s ugly snorts, Yuuri taking Victor in his arms and dipping him with absolute confidence, making his heart beat out a samba. And it was the myriad of Yuuris that gave him an idea.

As he reaches the Ramble in Central Park (wearing what may or may not be the jeans Chris rightfully claims best highlight his ass), he’s 100% ready for this.

Or so he thought.

As it turns out, he is absolutely not prepared to meet Yuuri wearing glasses in real time, or for the ensuing weakness affecting his knees. This is so unfair.

Once he’s greeted everyone, Yuuri stops by Victor’s side with a tiny smile that says ‘hey’, and maybe — hopefully — something more. Victor replies with one of his own and a wink as he scrolls down his phone.

“So. I know this is a bit unusual,” he says, “but I thought of something that should be in your wheelhouse.” He turns the phone to Yuuri, showing him a playlist_. _He blinks a few times, and Victor answers the unasked question, smile growing as he shares the plan that’s been eating at him for the past three days.

“I would like you to dance today.”

* * *

  
Looking back, Victor wonders how he didn’t see the obvious before. That Yuuri is stunning to look at was never a secret, but he should have realized something much sooner: Yuuri’s beauty lies beyond the eyes of the beholder.

He’s an impressionist painting.

Remarkable colors and striking brushstrokes, but the real _magic_ is in the movement. A look over his shoulder, the way he crosses his legs, the cadence of his walk, the way his eyes close when he laughs — everything you cannot capture in a photo, because it’s not the work of a single moment. All you can do is catch a lonely image that will never match the everlasting effect of being the reason behind that laugh, or the one he’s looking at.

It took a few flutes of champagne and nonexistent music for Victor to open his eyes and see it, but once he did, it’s so obvious it hurts.

So: the playlist. After Lilia’s party Victor googled to find what the night of dancing had already told him: Yuuri is a classically trained dancer. A highly well-trained one, in fact, with an extensive list of videos to prove it. An idea was born, and it gnawed, and insisted, and begged to be set free; the first idea in five long years to prick and tickle, to be an itch Victor was happy to scratch. Which led him to the playlist and the scene in front of him: Yuuri dancing in the snow.

In the sparkly indigo suit, Yuuri jumps out against the white and silver scenario of the Bow Bridge and the snow-covered margins of the frozen lake. In the background Tchaikovsky’s _Sleeping Beauty _plays, Yuuri’s favorite ballet — another item in the long list of confessions on their night together, this one enveloped in laughter and blushes as he led Victor in a waltz and hummed “Once Upon a Dream”.

_I could do this forever,_ Victor thought at the time. He still does.

Lost in the music, Yuuri’s long forgotten he’s in a shoot for an expensive campaign; he’s dancing, improvising, kicking up snow and laughing. Being himself in front of Victor’s lens, extricating a smile from Victor that feels as endless as the beauty in every one of Yuuri’s moments. Victor shoots a thousand clicks a minute, knowing only a few will be useful — but what a striking few they will be.

“Last one, Yuuri,” he says as soon as the waltz begins. Why Yuuri’s a model instead of a dancer is a question burning in the back of Victor’s mind, while the rest of him continues in a clicking fever. He’s already got more than enough material for the campaign, but he keeps going: at least _one _of these photos will do full justice to Yuuri, to everything he is beyond the pages and the billboards and the runways.

When the waltz comes to its rising, resonant climax, Victor stops abruptly: Yuuri ends his dance with one hand stretched out towards Victor as he looks straight at him — not at the camera, but at the person hiding behind it.

_I see you too._

One final click, and Victor raises his eyes, looking back at Yuuri without a camera between them; that’s the only way Yuuri should ever be looked at.

Maybe that goes for both of them.

By his side, Chris and the team start clapping (with Mila letting out a finger whistle that pierces the eardrums of everyone within a ten-mile radius).

_“Magnifique, chéri!”_ says Chris, winking at Yuuri as he walks towards them. Whether the red on Yuuri’s face is from the dancing, the cold, or his inexplicable reluctance to receive compliments is anyone’s guess, but it’s a welcome sight either way.

Chest heaving, Yuuri smiles at Chris in response and then looks at Victor. “Did you get anything… good?”

Victor’s small laugh turns into a small puff of breath against the cold. “Pretty sure I did, yeah.” As Christophe walks away, Victor holds Yuuri’s coat so he can wear it and adds in a low voice, “I got you, right? I don’t think it gets any better than that.”

There’s that pink flush again. Victor could have a day-long photoshoot of Yuuri’s blushes, could fill an entire gallery with them.

“That’s debatable,” Yuuri replies, “but um. Did you though?” At Victor’s puzzled look, he elaborates, “Get me. Did you?” He arches an eyebrow, face going from hesitant to confident in the blink of an eye. How he juggles a blush and poise at the same time is a marvel only Yuuri could achieve.

“I… was hoping to?” Victor says, though it comes out like a question instead of the smooth, self-assured remark he was going for. “If you’ll let me.”

Yuuri hums, adjusting the collar of his coat to shield his neck from the wind, and examines Victor’s face. “And what exactly would I be allowing? You haven’t really asked anything.”

“True,” Victor admits, taking off his Prada woolen scarf. Lilia would hate to see anything Prada on her brand’s new ambassador, but she’s not here to witness the betrayal, so he wraps it around Yuuri’s neck. “Would you say now is a good time?”

“Hmm, well…” Yuuri considers the question, while Victor resists the temptation to pull him by the scarf and drink a ‘yes’ straight from his lips. “You really got everything you needed today? No more shoots?”

“No more shoots.”

“You won’t need me anymore?”

“Nope,” Victor confirms cheerfully, “now it’s between me, my team, and Lilia. You and I officially no longer work together.”

A solemn nod, and a gentle, “Ask me, then.”

Victor takes a deep breath. “Yuuri Katsuki, would you like to go out with me?”

The smile is slow in forming, but as spellbinding as always, reaching all the way up to Yuuri’s eyes and speaking of charms that go beyond a perfect jawline and gorgeous eyes. Charms, Victor thinks, that will long outlast Yuuri’s youth.

“Oh my God, that caught me off-guard,” Yuuri jokes. “But yes, I’d love that.”

They walk towards the tent put up for styling and makeup, where Yuuri’s clothes wait for him.

“Dinner tonight?” he asks before Yuuri goes in.

“Sure. But you know,” Yuuri scrunches up his nose, “I could _really _use some coffee right now. I mean, unless you—”

“As free as a bird,” Victor replies firmly.

It’s amazing how the smile Victor coveted so much just last week is now his, freely and frequently given.

“Great! Then let me change, and we can go.” He turns to go inside but turns back almost instantly. “Oh, sorry! This is yours,” he says, taking off Victor’s scarf. Instead of giving it to him, however, Yuuri wraps it around Victor’s neck in one swift move and pulls him down, placing a light kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, a blush spilling down his neck as he disappears into the tent.

Victor stays frozen in place, heart summoning up a tempest.

On one hand, he knows now that he did _not_ get a picture that does Yuuri justice, because he will never be able to. Some things are impossible to catch on film.

On the other hand, he also knows he wants to spend a lifetime trying.

**Author's Note:**

> _"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything." (Aaron Siskind)_
> 
> Rae gave me the following prompt: "victor is a photographer, yuuri is a model, do with that what you will." So here you are! *will smiths at fic* Honey, this is for you (*¯ ³¯*)♡
> 
> The September issue is Vogue's most important edition of the year, and it's never had a man on the cover. There have only been 9 men on the cover of American Vogue to date, none in the September issue, and always shared with a woman. Also noteworthy, of course, is that the number of Asians on the cover of American Vogue is... well. Insignificant would be an understatement. So Yuuri being by himself on that particular cover is how much of a big deal he is in this AU. ♥ 
> 
> The model used for Yuuri is Yokohama Ryusei; he's a model/actor, and I am SORRY, but he has *perfect* lips.
> 
> Eternal thanks to my faithful betas [Dommi](http://sinkingorswimming.tumblr.com) and [Penelopedulysses](https://penelopedulysses.tumblr.com/). ♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡
> 
> As always, come find me on [Tumblr](http://thehobbem.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem)! We can scream about Yuuri being gorgeous, Victor being a helpless gay, or Michael Kors being tacky. ;)


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